Three Poems
Not in the same poem, you sickos.
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I think she's died, even though her heart still beats
And she's still indiscreet about breathing
And talking to herself.
There's no comfort in the mix of her tricks
In the wage of her sage, or the emptiness of her money
Like a fancy purse that used to flip out gold
And now it's just old
Clasp broke, heart broke.
I'm selfish for expecting the things I do
For missing the purse strings, I do
For letting the phone ring off the hook
Without so much as a look, a glance.
Any chance there's just one more loan?
You mean I'm alone? No one knows the answers anymore
For sure.
I'm such a spoiled bitch without the soul for being told no.
And now it's over and I cant think of another way to be.
No more money.
How do I love you now?
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Knives, as unforgiving as I want to be.
As unyielding, unrelenting, un-, un-, un-.
Everything I'm not in your skin.
Carving out a life.
I lay the flat metal side against your belly.
Measuring the rag of your gasps
The rise and fall of your gut.
Felling my sharp love into you, penetrating.
Unabashed. Unbelievable.
I could dig a house in your chest
The slick concave, a cavity, a nest.
Oh, I could live inside you.
And God,
Could I just
Eat
You
Up.
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Commuting everyday,
She sees a house standing.
It seems as though that's all the house can do.
Not shelter, not warm, not protect
Just stand.
The pristine fingers of a stripmall creep in behind the house
Though it cannot see, broken windows for eyes.
It went blind six years prior
When little James Craig got so angry he ran away from home
And threw rocks at it.
It sits just back from the freeway
Modernity swelling around it, into it.
She only sees it for 5 seconds, but thinks about it all day.
Their old house, abandoned but refusing to be forgotten.
She sees harsh hands in the unkept spires of the bushes.
Lashing memories flicker
Ghosts in the shadows cast by the sloping roof.
Tears on the porch.
Commuting, everyday
She wishes that Wal-Mart would swallow the house up in its gaping mouth.
She wishes she could find another way to work
And any path to follow that would not lead her back there.